2014 elections

Races to watch in Pennsylvania

By the summer of 2013, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Governing all rated Republican incumbent Tom Corbett as one of the most vulnerable governors facing re-election in 2014.[1] Their reports reflected the Republican governor's increasingly weak position heading into the 2014 election season, when his abysmal job approval ratings showed that the position was rabid for an ousting after years under a Republican trifecta.[2]

Several Democratic hopefuls -- Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger's predecessor Kate McGinty, York businessman Tom Wolf and State Treasurer Rob McCord -- competed in the May 20, 2014 primary, with Wolf emerging as the victor.[3][4][5][6]
Conservative activist Bob Guzzardi was mentioned as a potential primary opponent of Governor Corbett.[7][8] Guzzardi filed for the Republican primary and initially survived a challenge to his campaign's signatures but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ultimately removed him from the ballot.[9][10]

Primary: Pennsylvania is one of 12 states to use a strictly closed primary process. Voters are required to register with a political party to vote in the primary election.[11][12][13]

Voter registration: To vote in the primary, voters had to register by April 20, 2014. For the general election, the voter registration deadline was October 6, 2014 (at least 30 days prior to election).[14]

See also: Pennsylvania elections, 2014

Partisan breakdown

Heading into the November 4 election, the Republican Party holds 13 of the 18 congressional seats from Pennsylvania.

Voting early

Elections Performance Index

Pennsylvania ranked 27th out of the 50 states and District of Columbia in the Pew Charitable Trusts' Elections Performance Index (EPI), based on the 2012 elections. The EPI examines election administration performance and assigns an average percentage score based on 17 indicators of election performance. These indicators were chosen in order to determine both the convenience and integrity of these three phases of an election: registration, voting and counting. Pennsylvania received an overall score of 64 percent.[116]